


Long Long Time

by Omorka



Category: Ghostbusters (1984)
Genre: College, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 16:05:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/pseuds/Omorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it comes to the paranormal, Ray knows how to handle things, but his personal life is something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Long Time

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Three scenes in this fic are scenes from the movies told from Ray's perspective, and as such, quote several lines from the films directly. I take absolutely no credit for Aykroyd's and Ramis's brilliant dialogue; the Busters belong to them, not me. Major spoilers for both movies. Contains background mentions of Egon/Janine and Egon/Janine/Louis. Original prompt: "Watching, waiting, wanting," from LJ's Small Fandom Fest Round 5.

Normally, it didn't bother Raymond Stantz at all that he gangled. It was really just a fact of life, for him. He was reasonably athletic, so it wasn't like he was stick-figure thin; he just had limbs that tended to go off in different directions, much like the different parts of his mind. And so, for the first day of classes for his sophomore year at Columbia, he was dressed in a slightly ratty polo shirt and a pair of chino shorts that had seen better days. His knees and elbows stuck out in every possible direction as he settled into a second-row seat in the small auditorium.

The title of the course was "An Introduction to Parapsychology," and only one professor ever taught it, a rather crusty old lady with an owlish face. Technically, it was a junior-level course, but the only prerequisite was Psych 101, which Ray had taken last year expressly so he could sign up for this class. It was a 9 am class; he'd congratulated himself on not having a Monday-Wednesday-Friday 8 o'clock this semester. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he wasn't so lucky; he had "Basics of Circuit Design" from eight until nine-thirty, with Dr. Bartholomew, and he wasn't looking forward to that in the slightest.

He'd arrived ten minutes early to claim a good seat. He was just a touch nearsighted, although he'd never liked wearing glasses or contacts, so he always tried to claim a seat up near the front of any classroom. Of course, that usually meant he got called on a lot, but he didn't mind that; if he knew the answer, he was usually eager enough to give it.

By the time the rest of the class started filtering in, he'd laid out his textbook, notebook, and pens, and he was turned around in his desk, elbows pointed askew, watching his classmates. A lot of them looked like hippies, which was only to be expected, he guessed. The topic drew in a lot of flower people who were into altered states of consciousness and mystical experiences. Nothing wrong with that; just not where Ray came at the subject - he was interested in measurable psychic phenomena, like telepathy or telekinesis, and in ghosts. He'd never seen one, but he'd sought out haunted houses since he could remember, and in a few of them he'd thought he sensed a genuine presence - nothing he could quantify, yet, but he was sure there was something to it, and it thrilled him to his bones.

The professor, Dr. Harth, arrived and began chalking lists of terms on the blackboard without preamble. The rest of the class, including a few Barnard girls who were taking the course cross-listed, scrambled for their seats and began scribbling notes; Ray was already scrawling ink across the pages and adding the little dots and arrows that served as his reminders for later what he would need to study and what he already knew. The professor had just set a stack of notes on the podium and opened her mouth to begin lecturing when the door at the back of the room banged noisily, and every head turned to see who had made such a tardy entrance.

A tall young man in a well-worn blue sweater vest, a madras-style shirt striped in yellow and orange, and a pair of black jeans so faded they were almost ash grey jogged down the side isle and slid into the last occupied row, next to one of the girls. He had a pronounced widow's peak accented by his dark hair's natural curl, startlingly bright eyes, and the most striking body language Ray had ever seen - he had posture so upright Ray could visualize the string at the top of his head tugging him skyward, but he seemed completely relaxed. Only ROTC cadets and dancers stood like that, and neither of them would appear so casual as they dropped into a seat and spread out across the chairs on either side of them.

Despite being an inch taller than Ray and just as thin, there was nothing the least bit gangly about him.

Dr. Harth clearly recognized the fellow. She lowered her glasses to the end of her nose and called out, "Peter Venkman, do you have an excuse for your lateness?"

The young man shrugged. "The class is too early, and I didn't feel like running?"

She scowled, and returned to her lecture notes. Ray yanked his eyes away from the latecomer with an effort, and jotted the name 'Venkman' in the margins. As Dr. Harth launched into her opening speech, Ray tried to focus on the course outline she was describing, but every few minutes, he caught himself glancing back over his shoulder at the other man. Peter seemed to be alternately flirting wordlessly with the Barnard student sharing his row, and staring thoughtfully out the window. He certainly wasn't taking notes.

Ray found himself wishing desperately that he wasn't gangling noticeably. It suddenly seemed like he had too many knees and his feet were never in the right place.

When the hour was over, Ray tucked his books and papers into his backpack even more carelessly than usual, and he slid up the isle, hoping to catch a glimpse of Venkman before he made it out. Ray had no idea what he could say, or even why he wanted to, but it was irrelevant, anyway; the older student was gone when he got to the hallway.

\---

"Venkman, get serious." The physics graduate student with vertical hair and oversized wire-rims removed the tangle of wires and lights - it looked like it had started life as the innards of a radio, but now it had at least two detector grids hanging off of it, and gods only knew what else - from Peter's hands and set it gently on the dark Formica counter. The new guy was even taller than Peter, and thinner than either of them, although cafeteria food had begun to fill Ray out a bit. He still gangled, but at least his knees weren't so knobby. The grad student didn't gangle; he was far too serious for that. His body language was so stiff Ray almost expected him to make crackling noises as he moved.

Peter smirked. "Egon, I'm always serious. This is the junior I was telling you about, Ray Stantz. Ray, this is Egon Spengler. I think you two have a lot in common, starting with a great future in a mental institution if you keep this ghost thing up." The senior looked around for a chair, failed to find one, and drew up one of the lab stools with one foot. He perched on it and waited for the other two to get acquainted.

"Peter mentioned you were interested in spirits and stuff," Ray said, turning the device on the counter towards him. Whoever had put this together couldn't solder worth a damn. Several of the connections were so messy he wasn't sure they were functional.

"Interested isn't exactly the term I would use. I find the entire field of the paranormal, especially but not exclusively paraphysics, to be fascinating, and tragically, largely unexplored." Egon's eyes were on Ray's hands, not his face. Ray found himself glancing at Peter, whose smirk hadn't changed; for some reason, having Peter's eyes on him made Ray painfully aware of where his elbows were.

"Paraphysics? So do you have a theory on the energetics of psychic disturbances? I mean, I've researched more incidents than I can count, but the lack of any sort of plausible theory on the particulate level has been one of the big challenges to the field as far as mainstream respectability goes." Ray reached for a small screwdriver in the pile of tools Spengler had left on the counter.

"The biggest challenge, Ray, is that you're going for the least testable phenomenon in the field. Even if there were ghosts, and I still think you're both out in left field on that, if you're going to publish, you need replicable experiments." Peter had apparently decided to join in the conversation instead of just observing it. "I mean, telepathy and clairvoyance even I can design experiments for. But most mediums won't touch a lab setting with the four-foot pole they use to poke their clients with."

"I don't think either of us are particularly interested in the trappings of spiritualism, Peter," Egon noted. He didn't sound offended; he was just correcting the younger student. He did look at Ray to make sure his assumption was correct, and Ray nodded vigorously, adding "Honestly, Peter, while I'd love to see a full medium's seance, it would mostly be an exercise in picking out what to look for to distinguish cases of fraud. The literature suggests that most spirits are far more closely linked to places than to people." He finished adjusting the tiny screw he was poking at, and suddenly the entire left side of the gadget lit up.

Egon's head swiveled around, and his eyebrows went up. "You got the power supply working! What did you do?"

Ray shook his head. "I just cleared this connection and re-tightened your variable switch. Did you solder this yourself? Your joins are a mess." He pointed. "So does this detector array measure minute changes in magnetic flux? You have multiple selenium solenoids with copper coils on this side, but the ones on the other side look like an alloy I don't recognize."

Egon's dark eyes lightened by a fraction. "In a sense. I theorize that psychokinetic energy is carried by a set of particles similar to but entirely distinct from electrons and positrons, and creating a field effect that would not show up on a regular voltmeter. However, there are numerous reports of spectral activity interfering with the operation of reasonably complex mechanical and electronic devices."

"Stopping clocks and watches, making radios and car engines go dead, that sort of thing. Like the Great Indiana Radio Blackout of '47." Ray's eyes sparkled as he considered the possibilities.

"Precisely." Egon hadn't smiled yet, nor did he now, but something like satisfaction played at his lips. "The detector array is designed to measure very small differences in the electromagnetic field across the array due to psychokinetic interference."

"A psychokinetic energy meter!" Ray breathed. A noise behind him made him acutely conscious of Peter's gaze.

"A crude first attempt at one. I confess that my lack of engineering skill has made actually constructing the meter significantly more difficult than designing it was." Egon looked annoyed, not at Ray but at himself.

"Well, I can help with that. The main problem with this thing is that you're using your soldering iron like a crayon, you need to -"

Peter interrupted Ray's excited babbling by clapping the other two men on the shoulder. "I'd say that was a successful introduction, wouldn't you? I'll leave you two mad scientists to work out how to improve your little emergency light there - I have a hot date in an hour, and I need to go change shirts." He hopped down from the stool and ambled out the door.

Ray felt a twinge of something - jealousy? That couldn't be right, could it? - stab at him between the shoulder blades. He sighed, and turned back to the jumble of wires and resistors. "So, Egon, how long have you known Peter?" He picked up the soldering iron.

"We met, briefly, during his sophomore year - my senior year. We were both taking 'Mythology and Abnormal Psychology,' and he was in the other section. The professor invited several guest lecturers, who invariably presented out of class time, usually in the evenings, which Peter objected to. I objected to their sloppy use of anecdotes instead of organized data." Egon adjusted his glasses. "During one particularly egregious guest lecture, Peter and I started . . . heckling the visiting speaker." The corner of his mouth quirked up into the closest thing Ray had seen to a smile from him yet, a twisted leer with a hint of cruelty to it. It would have been a bit frightening if Egon's eyes hadn't been so calm. "By the end of the evening, we had him recanting his original theory and promising to burn his next manuscript if we would stop tearing holes in his theses. I had to explain that that would be intellectually dishonest. Peter pointed out that it wouldn't be much fun, either."

"Sounds like him," chuckled Ray. He touched two connections and frowned. "I think you have a short here. I may have to unsolder this and start over."

"Go ahead. At any rate, we encountered each other a few times after that in or near Dr. Harth's office - she was assisting us in assembling a coherent minor in parapsychology. This semester, we discovered that we were both enrolled in Dr. Keller's seminar on prophesy, precognition, and the human condition, and became re-acquainted with each other. He mentioned that he met you last year, and spoke very highly of your enthusiasm for occult subjects."

"He did?" A fuzzy warmth spread through Ray's stomach at the idea of Peter praising him to - well, to anybody, but especially to someone as formidable as Egon clearly was.

"Yes, when he wasn't claiming that you were, how did he put it, my kind of crazy." There. That was a grin. Not much of one, but there it was. Ray felt his shoulders relax. "For all that Peter plays up his skeptical nature, he really is quite interested in ESP and its effects on the human psyche. He isn't convinced in the reality of ghosts and other spirit forms, but I believe that sufficient evidence will turn him around. He is quite perceptive; he's just equally lazy."

"Yeah, I'd noticed that last part." Ray peered at the re-soldered joint and then began tightening the elfin screws on the unlit side of the meter. "Okay, as soon as this cools, we can hook the power supply back up, and - whoa!" Egon's fingers brushed the far end of the device, and suddenly both sides were lit up.

"Excellent. Thank you, Raymond, that was very helpful." The taller man tapped the slider bar at the end again, and the lights dimmed. "Would you mind looking over some diagrams for more . . . complex devices?"

"I'd love to," answered Ray, grinning like a fox in a hen coop.

\---

The view from his window looked past three rather spindly trees across a small but very tidily mowed lawn into a parking lot. Ray drummed his fingers on his drafting table. He was daydreaming again; he needed to stop that. Unfortunately, the design he was working on was incomplete - one of the components was still being worked on by the contractor lab, and until he knew what its input/output configuration was, he couldn't do much with the rest of the design. He'd made a couple of sketches of the housing, but that wasn't really R&amp;D's purview. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes, and went out for a 15-minute smoke break.

The weight he'd picked up in college hadn't come off, and that was okay - it made him look more like an adult, and less like a teenager in an adult's clothing. The drinking habit he'd picked up hanging around with Peter had ended, more or less, at graduation; he'd have a beer with dinner every now and then, but he'd always been paranoid about being too drunk - he didn't have all that many inhibitions to begin with, and losing the ones he had seemed like a bad idea - and now that he didn't have a reason to go out partying on the weekends, he just didn't. The last collegiate vice, cigarettes, was another issue. He was sure he was smoking more than was good for him, but it was his only excuse to get out of his office. The building had remarkably strict rules about where you could and couldn't smoke, so when he needed a cig, he had to go to the employee lounge, the smoking section of the company cafeteria, the warehouse, or outside if the weather was nice.

It was cloudy, but breezy and pleasantly warm, so Ray wandered just outside the main entrance, lighter already in hand. As the first curls of smoke drifted upward, Ray deliberately put the design out of his head. Unfortunately, there wasn't that much left in his life other than work for him to think about. His last attempt at dating had been disastrous, culminating in her painting a cross on his car and threatening to exorcise his apartment. The time before that had been pleasant, but brief; they just hadn't had much in common to talk about. Right now, his life was work, pick up dinner, take it home, watch television for an hour, read until bed, sleep, get up, go to work again. He went to the movies on Saturday, and he straightened his apartment, did laundry, and called his maiden aunt on Sundays. Since he'd moved to Connecticut to work for Olean-Arthur Engineering, he'd been isolated from his friends. Not that he'd ever had that many close friends to begin with; he had lots of friendly acquaintances, but something about his manic energy seemed to make most people reluctant to spend too much time with him.

The breeze picked up; it smelled like lawn clippings and faraway rain. Ray stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette on the brick of the building and headed back to his office, his mind half-adrift.

He had just picked up his pencil again when the phone rang. Only two people ever called that phone - his immediate supervisor, who was out dealing with the contractors for this project, and the department secretary. It was probably her, wanting him to write up another progress report. He thought about letting it ring, and then telling whichever one of them it was that he'd been on his smoke break when they'd called.

Guilt about the possible lie made him pick up the receiver on the fourth ring. "Ray Stantz, Design Four."

"Ray, it's Peter. Egon's dad died."

Ray's stomach lurched twice, once at the sound of Peter's voice and again at the news. "Oh, no, that's terrible."

"Tell me about it. He's like a zombie right now. Or a Vulcan. Is that right? The pointy-eared bastards with no emotions? A zombie Vulcan." Peter's tone was light, but Ray could tell there was strain in his voice. "Anyway, the funeral is on Sunday in Cleveland. Well, Lake Heights, or whatever the name of that subdivision is. We're driving up in Egon's old clunker on Saturday." He paused. Ray knew that hesitation, the moment when Venkman wavered between coming out and asking for what he wanted and trying to fast-talk you into it without you catching on. "And we could really use a third person to split the driving duties."

"And the gas money, right?" A chuckle on the other end of the line told Ray he was right. He didn't mind, really - half a swindle from Peter was better than the whole deal. "Wait, aren't you still in Manhattan? I thought Egon was in Cambridge."

Peter sounded tired. "He is. I took the train up here yesterday."

Ray swallowed back a lump of jealousy - when his parents had died, last year, Peter had come to keep an eye on him, too. Of course, they were still in the same city at the time; Peter was working on a master's in psychology at NYU. Ray wondered whether Peter would have ditched class and come to play therapist for him if he'd had to travel. It didn't matter, really. "Okay. So you'd be coming through here about what time tomorrow?"

"About nine in the morning."

Ray mentally added two hours; Venkman never got anywhere on time. On rare occasions, he was half an hour early, but otherwise, he might as well be on Mountain Time, or even Pacific. "Okay. I'll pack an overnight bag and be ready for you." He rattled off his address.

"Hang on. I need to get some paper to write that on." There was a shuffling on the other end of the line. "Okay, I got something. Tell me how to get there again?" Ray gave him the address, and instructions on how to get there from the turnpike, listening to the sounds of a very squeaky marker. He wondered what Peter was writing on. "If you get lost, Pete, just stop somewhere and call me."

"We won't get lost. Egon'll be navigating." Peter sounded confident; Ray wasn't so sure - if Egon got focused on something else, they could end up in Chattanooga before he'd notice. Peter continued, "Thanks, Ray, I really appreciate it. We - Egon misses you, you know."

"I miss you guys, too." Ray knew how strong the emotion behind those words was, but he was still surprised by how hard it hit him. His eyes stung. When he finished his bachelor's degree and Egon completed his master's at the same time, he'd assumed that they would all drift apart, the way college friends do after graduation, and they had, although they still called once in a while. Peter did most of the calling. Partly that was because he often needed favors - half the times he called Ray, it was on some pretext to borrow money - but he was also the 'people person' of their little trio. Egon was always glad to hear from them, but he rarely thought of contacting either of them on his own.

"We'll see you tomorrow, then. Bright and early! Oh, and if you have change for the toll-way, bring that too, because I forgot mine when I came up here." There was Venkman the huckster, right on schedule. "See ya, Ray."

"Bye, Peter." The line went dead, and Ray hung up. He looked at the clock. If he didn't take his second smoke break, he could leave in two hours and five minutes. His mind now full, but not with engineering, he sketched four more potential designs for the case housing before giving up and spending his last half hour alternating between doodling and glaring at the clock.

\---

"Okay, explain this to me again?" Ray was reasonably sure he was tipsy. Peter was mixing martinis from the contents of Ray's liquor cabinet, and he was pouring with a very heavy hand. "You got Columbia to do _what_?"

"They're going to offer a graduate program in parapsychology. Remember Dr. Harth? She let me and Egon put together a minor program in it for our undergrad degrees, the same one that you used? She won some big grant, and she's bullied the psych department into letting her create a doctoral program." Peter stretched; he'd had more than a few martinis himself. "It's gonna be wide open - no one's ever designed a course structure for the subject before. She'll teach most of the classes, but a lot of it is going to be research." His face split in a lupine grin. "Self-designed research. Who's to say what your results should look like? It's gonna be great. Egon and I have already applied."

Ray shot a glance at Egon. Egon had gulped down one celebratory cocktail, and then propped himself up in Ray's lounger, where he was slowly nodding off. The physicist brought his head up, met his gaze, and gave him the twisted little smirk. "The grant includes a significant appropriation for lab equipment."

Ray shook his head. "Egon I get; he just finished his physics doctorate, and after meeting his family that one time I wouldn't want to go work at his uncle's lab, either." The entire Spengler clan, with the lone exception of Egon's mother, had treated Peter and Ray like pariahs at the funeral, as if it were their fault that Egon had esoteric interests other than pure physics. Ray had pointed out that Egon's fascination with mycology wasn't shared by either of them, and he still pursued that, too. For some reason, Egon's brother had almost slugged him at that comment, and the three of them had run and hid out in the basement with two of the younger Spengler cousins, who were bored by the whole funeral and snuck off to watch TV. "But, Peter, aren't you only a year into their psychology doctoral program?"

"I can do them both at once. There's a lot of overlap, anyway; all the parapsych courses they've had so far have been co-listed as either psych or anthropology." Peter continued grinning, and slid around the counter, head high, eyes liquid. He draped one arm around Ray's shoulders; the scents of vermouth and olive juice wafted from his hands. "And I think you should do it with us. Get the band back together, as it were."

"I'd like to, Venkie, I really would." After two years at Olean-Arthur, Ray had fled the world of private industry and come back to academia, enrolling at Polytechnic University for a master's in electrical engineering. That this put him within subway distance of Peter again was not a coincidence. "But I need to finish the program that I'm in. I can't just rush off to another program just because it's my hobby, you know?"

"It's not a mere hobby, Ray." Egon's eyes were closed, but his voice was calm and steady. "You and I are called to paranormal studies. It's a vocation. No one else has a grasp on the electromagnetic properties of psychokinetic energy. No one else has even come up with a coherent theory. We're way out ahead of the rest of the field, Ray. We _have_ to do this." It was oddly emotional language, coming from Spengler.

"Come on, Ray, you heard the big guy, we _need_ you." Peter's eyes were piercing blue, and they drilled their way into Ray's soul. Something stirred at the base of his spine, warm and tingling.

"Peter, I -"

"_Please,_ Ray." Peter inclined his head towards him. Ray pulled his eyes from Peter's gaze and settled on his mouth; the urge to kiss him struck him hard in the stomach. Ray flinched away, and turned away from Peter towards the wall, breathing hard.

"I'm - I'm sorry, Venkman." Peter took a step back at the distancing use of his last name. Ray swallowed and went on, "I'll join you as soon as I can. I want to, I really do. I think it's great, what you'll be doing. But I have to finish what I've started. I don't want it on my record that I skipped out of a degree program like that." He looked at the floor, his face burning.

Egon's voice drifted over from the easy chair. "Raymond, do whatever you need to do for yourself. Your expertise in engineering will not be less appreciated for being further honed. But I don't know if I can build a working PKE meter without you." He sat up halfway and cracked one eye open. "I still can't solder worth a darn."

Ray had to laugh at that. "Of course I'll help, Egon. I want to see that meter working as much as you do."

Peter grinned at both of them. His mouth was still strangely inviting. "Ray, how fast do you think that brilliant mind of yours can finish the degree at Poly-U?"

Ray looked back, his stomach churning, and not just because of the alcohol. "As soon as I can, Pete. I promise."

\---

"But you can't retire now!" Panic gripped Ray around his chest with icy fingers. "Who'll chair my committee? What am I gonna do?"

Dr. Harth seemed more birdlike than ever, a snowy owl on stork-like legs, as she looked up at him and patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Mr. Stantz, I assure you, you will be able to complete your degree plan. You've completed all the course hours, and Dr. Pepperdine is quite competent to direct your dissertation. I'll stay on your committee as an emeritus, so don't worry about being short a person." She looked wistful. "I had hoped to build this into something that would outlast me, but even if you're the last doctorate to come out of the program, I'm glad to see it continuing as an undergraduate department. And I understand that it's a package deal, so you have no need to worry - I wouldn't, how did he put it, 'hang you out to dry,' and neither would your friends."

"Huh?" Ray had completely lost the thread of the last part of the conversation.

The aged professor looked at him over her glasses. "Have you talked to Dr. Venkman since yesterday?"

"No, he had some sort of family business to take care of." It was strange, in a way - tragic, but strange - that all three of them had lost at least one parent since they'd met. Peter's mom had hung on for long enough to see her son get his first Ph.D., and she'd left her affairs in good order, but her son was still wrestling with the probate court over the last crumbs of her tiny estate. The message on Ray's phone last night suggested that Venkman thought the end of that mess was in sight, but he'd thought that twice before, already. Ray had no idea why it was being so complicated for his friend, but his heart ached in sympathy - thank all the gods his own parents had been very specific in their will.

Dr. Harth nodded. "Then you might not have heard yet. The grant has been -"

The door to her cluttered office flew open. Peter marched in, a spindled manila envelope clutched in his hand. "Victory is mine! I'm sorry about missing our appointment yesterday, Prof, but I had a court date. The _last_ court date, I'm happy to say. I think I can finally get on with my life now." Egon drifted in behind him, adjusting his glasses and blinking, as if he wasn't sure where he was. Peter must have dragged him out of the lab.

"That's quite all right, Dr. Venkman. You hadn't let Ray in on your little scheme yet?" She re-settled her own spectacles in unconscious imitation of Egon's gesture. "Because I was just explaining to him - "

"Oh, yeah, Ray, I forgot." Peter looked like a five-year-old in a candy store. "The good doctor here is retiring, but the Board of Trustees approved her grant renewal before she decided she needed a house on the beach instead of this dump." He waved one hand at the walls of her windowless office. "With her salary out, there's just enough money in the budget for three non-tenured lecturer positions. The focus of the parapsych program is gonna be shifting to the undergrad level instead of the graduate level, since no one's applied for the graduate program after you, but to do that with her gone, they need people to teach those classes." He paused, eyebrows lifted. God, he was gorgeous like this, full of secrets and excitement.

Ray blinked and tried to clear that last thought from his head. "So you pitched you and Egon for two of those positions?"

"And you, Ray. I know you're not quite finished, but they're not keen on spending all the money at once, anyway, so we'll start this fall, and you can join us as soon as you finish. Since a lot of it will be Egon's pet project, we're re-labeling it the Department of Paranormal Studies." Peter had the smile of a poker dealer who just had an easy mark join his table. "What do you say, buddy?"

"Um, thanks." Ray wasn't sure what to think. This was what he wanted, wasn't it? A job doing what he'd always been fascinated by, with his two best friends? It was just so sudden - no, it was that he hadn't worked for it that was the problem. Things that just dropped into his lap always, _always_ had strings attached. And so did any gift from Peter Venkman.

And working in the same office as Peter, seeing him every day, watching the constant stream of girls he picked up, dated for a week or two, and lost interest in . . .

Peter clapped him on the shoulder. "Great! Egon and I are getting our office set up, and I'm sure you'll want to go ahead and move your stuff in, even though you won't be official until you have your sheepskin. So come give a friend a hand with some boxes, okay?"

Ray looked wildly at Dr. Harth and Egon, who exchanged a knowing, over-the-spectacles glance with each other. Peter tightened his grip on Ray's shoulder and dragged him out the door, protesting weakly.

\---

They were coming back to campus in Egon's car, Ray's having broken down two months previously and him not being able to afford both the repairs and the simple cost of parking the thing in NYC on a lecturer's salary. Egon was driving, which meant Ray was constantly seething in frustration; Spengler drove very precisely and followed all traffic laws to the letter, which often resulted in being in violation of the unwritten rules of the road, and they got honked at almost constantly.

Still, they'd gotten some really intriguing results. Ray decided to risk distracting Egon from the surrounding traffic. "I think we're on the right track with the selenium-tungsten alloy in the new design of the meter. We got measurable readings in the bedroom, and that's where she said the ghost usually appears."

Egon nodded, nearly banging his nose on the steering wheel he was hunched over. "I still think using two different alloys, or possibly pure selenium and an alloy, will give us better precision on our measurements. _Tobin's Spirit Guide_ lays out a basic system of classification for spirits, but it's based on categories I find inherently questionable. I'd like to start from scratch, and develop a taxonomy based on their level of available PK energy and easily verifiable attributes." He paused to avoid being crushed by an overeager cab and a suddenly braking bus. "But to do that, we're going to need significantly better sources of data. We'll need readings of PKE levels, ionization rates, ectoplasm resonance frequencies . . . and accurate instruments to record all of that."

"We're getting there, I'm sure we are." Ray sighed; their last three wild ghost chases had all yielded data, but each time it was just a tantalizing taste. They hadn't yet collected an ectoplasm sample, much less seen a ghost, although several times they'd felt the chill down the backs of their necks that was supposed to be the sign of a ghostly presence, and Ray had witnessed a bizarre, unexplained underwater phenomenon near a supposedly haunted shipwreck, although Peter had laughed about that one for days afterwards.

"Getting there, yes. Not there yet." Egon pulled into the parking garage and waved his faculty pass at the guard. "We currently have nine-tenths of a working PKE meter, and several ionization meters that are not meant for psychokinetic particle detection, but might work anyway. We'll need an actual ectoplasm sample before we even know what we'll require to analyze it." He slid into an open space, backed up again, straightened out, and parked the car.

They gathered their cameras and instruments from the back seat in silence, and Ray's thoughts drifted back to Peter. After a three-month period of talking about trying experiments in out-of-body-experiences and badgering the department for money for a sensory deprivation tank, he was running telepathy experiments with the Zener deck again, but he hadn't really defined a hypothesis. Ray strongly suspected this set of experiments was nothing more than a ploy to meet Barnard undergraduates.

Egon spoke suddenly as they crossed the campus to get back to Weaver Hall. "Peter's not pulling his weight. Is there anything we can do about it?"

Ray shook his head, rattling the camera slung around his neck. "We can nag him, but that's about it. He's never been into the spectral aspect of the paranormal, remember."

The physicist made a small noise of disappointment, then froze with his hand on the doorknob, his eyes focused on the air about a foot above the floor. After a minute and a half, Ray prompted, "Egon? What's up?"

"Instead of two flat arrays, we use three lines of solenoids, with the solenoids oriented at right angles to the line. We use the alloy in the two outside lines, and the pure selenium in the middle one, and let the exterior wings rotate as the PKE levels increase."

"Which they'll do as the pseudo-magnetic field generated by the ambient PKE is converted to an actual magnetic field by the solenoids, and the increasing angle will change the sensitivity of the meter!" Ray got it; he could see the design in his head.

"And we can connect the dial readouts to both the electrical output from the solenoids, and the angle of the wings. A linear arrangement will also give us directionality on the meter, which the array method largely lacks." Egon abruptly yanked the door open, walked briskly across the room to the chalkboard, erased the doodle Peter had left there, and began sketching.

"Oh, you're back. How was the spiritual snipe hunt?" Peter addressed the question to Ray; Egon was buried in the depths of his own head.

"Not bad. We picked up some readings on the current version of the meter, and Egon has some ideas for improving it." Ray waved at their colleague as he absently erased marks on the chalkboard with his sleeve and restarted his calculation.

"Yeah, I kinda got that. Listen, Ray, I have some ideas about how to refine my current experiment set, using positive and negative reinforcement, but I'll need your help in getting the apparatus and then getting it set up." Peter flashed him the flattering grin, the one that made the base of Ray's spine warm. "Are you free after your office hours are over? I gotta go teach my two o'clock in ten minutes, but unless they have a bunch of questions I should be back here by three-fifteen." And there was the ingratiating smile, the one that made his stomach do flip-flops.

"Sure, Peter." Ray sighed. "Can you give me some idea of what you need?"

The psychologist shrugged elaborately. "That's part of what I need your brilliant brain for. I have a theory, but I can't visualize yet how to put it into practice." He faked a sheepish look. Ray wondered if he realized how fake it looked, or if he thought it worked; the engineer tried to look unimpressed. Peter scooped up a notebook stuffed with scraps of paper from the desk, headed for the door, and waved. "I shall return!" he exclaimed, and charged out.

Egon broke the chalk and kept writing with the stub. Ray looked around the lab and started straightening up, clearing a space on the work table for the soldering iron.

\---

Ray had experienced just about every emotion a human being could feel, all before supper today. Excitement, from the library's call; joy, incredible joy, at finally encountering their first ghost; gut-wrenching fear, from the same; pride, in finally having all the measurements they needed to not only detect a ghost but possibly affect and even contain it; anger, at Peter for lying to them about the Regents' meeting; sorrow, from losing their lab. Now he was mostly disappointed. To be so close, and then have everything snatched from them, was really more than he could handle right now. He hadn't felt this low since his parents had died.

Peter was trying to cheer him up. That he was doing so with a bottle of liquor wasn't really helping much, and it was obvious that Venkman was trying to buck up his own spirits at least as much as he was Ray. Egon wasn't there; he'd gone to call his mother and then pick up the car before Dean Yeager had his parking privileges revoked.

"Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma," Peter was saying. "I believe we were destined to get thrown outta this dump." He was swaying a bit to the cadence of his own voice, like a revival-tent preacher.

Upset as he was, Ray found that movement soothing, somehow. Mesmerizing. Still, he was worried. "For what purpose?"

"To go into business for ourselves." Venkman pronounced the words like they were a sacrament, then took another pull from the bottle.

Ray began explaining how much founding a business and the ectoplasmic containment system he and Egon were still in the beginning stages of designing would cost, but he was only half paying attention to what he was saying. His eyes were completely filled with Peter - his shattering blue gaze, the curve of his lower lip, the way he was slowly bouncing on the balls of his feet. His pupils were dilated, no doubt from the liquor.

Lust. That was the one human emotion he hadn't felt yet today. There, now his day was complete. Ray wanted nothing more than to push his friend against the closest wall, kiss him hard and taste the alcohol on his tongue, feel the hardness of his ribs under his fingers.

Instead, Ray finished with "Where would we get the money?" and took another drink.

When Peter murmured "I don't know, Ray. I don't know," it sounded like a blessing.

\---

Despite spending so many years in graduate school, the sensation of being so exhausted he was at the point of collapse for days on end was a new one for Ray. The closest he could think of was the time he spent three days straight awake, working on his dissertation, with the help of far too many cigarettes, Venkman's coffee, and some insanely loud and screechy opera he'd borrowed from Spengler. After that, he'd fallen into bed and slept the clock round twice, and then gotten up and spent the next eighteen hours editing.

That had felt a little like this. But not much.

He waved Peter over to the card table that was currently serving as their dining room; the other table had bits of wire and quartz crystals strewn all over it. "Hey. Take a load off for a minute. I reheated last night's fried rice."

Peter needed no more encouragement; he usually didn't, for an invitation not to work for a while. He plopped into the other chair, his spine, for once, stooped. He spooned most the the remaining rice out of the carton onto a paper plate, paused, and then grabbed a fork instead of the chopsticks. After shoveling a third of the helping into his mouth, he set the plate down and wandered back to the refrigerator, coming back with one of Egon's sodas.

He flashed a tired grin at Ray as he opened it. "So, what's up with you?"

"I dunno, Pete, we never talk anymore." Ray took a swallow of the light beer he was holding and winced at his words. It was true, though. He was spending most of his time in the firehouse with Spengler, working on improvements to their equipment or fixing the things that broke. They took enough tumbles off of fire escapes and stairs - spooks seemed to take great delight in leaving ectoplasm on staircases - that their packs needed almost constant maintenance, and Peter didn't know enough about electronics to do it. At least Egon's soldering had improved drastically. When they weren't in the lab, Egon spent most of his miniscule free time with their secretary; Ray wasn't sure if they were flirting, or dating, or what, but it was the most attention he'd ever seen Spengler paying a girl since they'd met.

Peter spent a lot of time with the press or on the phone, acting as their spokesperson or chatting up clients and potential clients. He'd fallen for their very first one, and harder than Venkman usually fell - otherwise he'd be over her by now. Ray tried not to be jealous, and failed utterly. She was tall and elegant and utterly classy, and way out of Venkman's league, as he managed only one and a half of those on a good day.

Peter eyed Ray over the soda can, a thoughtful expression on his face. "You know, Ray, you're right." He set the can down and rubbed his chin. "The three of us are all relating as coworkers, not as friends, anymore. That's a damn shame." He sighed. " 'Cause you two definitely need to loosen up. I mean, come on, have you heard what Spengs is using as pick-up lines on Janine?"

"So they really are an item?" Ray asked around a mouthful of rice and shrimp.

"Oh, yeah, big time. Well, I mean, for Spengler, anyway. I don't think they're dancing the horizontal mambo yet. I'm pretty sure when he loses his virginity, we'll notice the difference." Peter grinned at Ray's near-spit-take. "Speaking of which, how are you doing in that department?"

"Huh?" Ray felt his ears turn red. He was not ready to have this conversation with Peter yet; maybe in a few millennia . . .

"I mean, some very, very pretty reporters have been coming around the place lately, and while I've been doing my best to dazzle them all with my charm and style, some of them are into nerdier guys than me." Peter leaned forward conspiratorially. "And Spengler's so obtuse he barely notices when Janine flings herself at him, so he's out. You had any luck with them?"

Ray shook his head, and chewed slowly so that he could carefully plan what he was about to say. "Venkman, I've been so busy with the job and the talk shows you can't make, I haven't had much time for a social life at all, much less a love life." There. Technically, none of that was a lie. Peter always knew when he was lying. Hell, Spengler usually knew, and he wasn't half as perceptive as Venkman was about that kind of thing.

The psychologist nodded. "I know what you mean, Ray. I've finally gotten Dana to return my phone calls, but I still can't get her to come back here, or to let me inspect her apartment again." He looked genuinely troubled. Girl problems were something Peter didn't have much experience with; he usually had no problem bedding them, and he rarely was interested in continuing with one past about a month, because at that point they usually wanted to talk about the future of the relationship. Peter wasn't a future-focused sort of guy. But he was taking this thing with Dana very seriously, at least for him.

Ray swallowed the last of his fried rice. "Maybe we should all go. You know, let her know we're serious, instead of you misusing the ectoplasmic aerosol sampler and cracking jokes."

"I wasn't misusing it." Peter stirred the grains remaining on his plate. "I just wasn't picking anything up. Have you guys gotten the blueprints yet?"

"Janine's picking them up on Thursday. Did you place the ads in the paper?"

"Sent them in last Friday. They should start running tomorrow."

A pair of heavy boots came clumping up the stairs. Spengler poked his head up. "Are you two done with dinner? We need to leave in ten minutes if we're going to arrive at our seven o'clock on time."

"We were just finishing up. Did you eat anything?" Peter slid his arms back into the sleeves of his jumpsuit and zipped it up to mid-chest.

"Two doughnuts left over from breakfast, three Cokes, half of Janine's apple, and a peppermint from the bag she keeps in her desk." Egon was already in uniform; he rummaged through the components on the other table and slipped two coils of wire into his pockets.

"Too much sugar is going to rot your teeth, you know that, right?" Peter rolled his eyes, although his eating habits were better only by comparison.

"Did you recharge the PKE detection grid on Ecto?" Ray kicked off his loafers and stepped into his uniform.

"I haven't had time yet, Raymond, I'm sorry." Egon had been getting even less sleep than Ray had. Ray suddenly felt sorry for asking; Spengler looked thinner and more drawn than usual, even.

"Well, we'll just use the hand meters. We'll be fine." Ray hoped he sounded encouraging. He leaned over and finished lacing his boots as Spengler trudged back down the stairs. Peter waved. "See you in two," he called, as he grabbed the firepole and dropped out of sight.

\---

If Ray had been able to think at all, he would have said the past three months had contained more actual living than most people got to do in threescore years and ten. Now, they were about to die, on top of a building on Central Park West, and the agent of their destruction wore the form of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, because he hadn't been able to keep his mind clear at a critical moment. Honestly, though, he was sort of glad on some level that it had been he who named the Destructor. Winston had military experience, Peter had studied abnormal psychology, and Egon understood quantum singularities. He was pretty sure anything his friends came up with would have killed them, and the population of New York, much more quickly than the hundred-foot marshmallow was managing.

Egon was talking to Peter, or maybe at him. Spengler had always understood the inter-dimensional chronotemporal physics of the paranormal better than Ray did, even when he wasn't half in shock. Ray managed to tune in just in time to hear Egon suggest they cross the streams.

"Cross the streams . . . " he moaned, as understanding sank in. Yes, if it was possible to close Gozer's portal into whatever underworld it normally dwelled in, the emissions of all four streams, crossed, would do it. But there was a 90% chance that the protonic backlash would neutronize them outright, and if they did survive, there was at least a 50% chance that they'd be sucked into Gozer's dimension, or shunted off to some other pocket reality entirely.

At least, he thought so. Doing the math in his current state was really difficult. But it didn't sound like Egon thought much of their chances for survival, either.

Suddenly Venkman's hand tapped his face. Not a full-on slap, but enough to bring him back to reality, if still dazed a bit. The spot he'd touched was warm; for a blow, it was soothing, almost. Peter was getting to his feet again. "I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! Let's do it!"

They were going to die. That hadn't changed. But now, at least they might die saving the world. That was worth doing. Ray focused on Peter's voice and let it drag him upright as Winston complained about how little they were paying him for this.

A flaming hand of marshmallow slammed down behind them. The four of them lined up, shoulder to shoulder, facing Gozer's pyramid. The two terror dogs, the physical manifestations of Zuul and Vinz Clorto, snarled at them but remained on their plinths. Why should they react? Gozer's avatar was about to crush them like graham crackers.

Peter's eyes found Ray's, and for a moment there was nothing but a sea of blue in front of the engineer. Peter smiled, but it wasn't his con-man shark-grin or his pleading simper. It was genuine and warm, and Ray fell into it.

"See you on the other side, Ray." Peter turned and fired, his full proton stream bucking against his grip as it impacted the gate.

Ray's mouth was dry, but his heart swelled. "Nice working with you, Dr. Venkman," he returned, and for once there was nothing derisive or distancing about his use of Peter's title. He fired, and brought his writhing stream up to Peter's.

They caught, twisted, and flared. The proton throwers bucked and shimmied in their grasp. Ray called out to Spengler, and felt more than heard or saw Egon and Winston fire. "Now, Spengler!" Did he call out, or did Peter? He couldn't remember, afterwards. The rope of four combined streams writhed like a snake, no, like a kraken's tentacle, and it was more than they could handle, but it held long enough for the gate to flare and spark as it destabilized. Someone yelled, the marshmallow behemoth screamed, the gate imploded, something else blew up, and Ray was flung pack-first into a wall.

He didn't really remember waking up, either. Winston told him later that the two of them had been tossed into the same alcove. He did vaguely remember that he was calling Venkman's name before he was fully on his feet.

\---

It won't last." Egon tossed the calculator onto the lab table as if it had offended him. Janine clucked and came over to rub his shoulders. Peter had been right about that; the change in Egon's demeanor when they'd started sleeping together had been abrupt and quite noticeable. Not only had his body language become looser overnight - not that he wasn't still pretty stiff, but now he could be bent instead of broken - but he'd also started touching other people. He almost never did that before.

He'd even started smiling more, at least until the big cream-colored envelopes from law offices started arriving. Now he wore a near-perpetual scowl.

"But that's good, isn't it?" Winston had his feet up on the second-hand restaurant table they'd picked up for the dining area. "I mean, right now we're running ourselves ragged scooping up every spook that got out when the last containment unit blew, plus the new ones that are popping up. We want that to go back to a manageable level, right?"

"If it was going to go back to, say, the level of ambient psychokinetic energy present in early September of last year, then yes, that would be sufficient to keep us in business while convincing the general public - and the city government - that we perform a necessary service, without over-stressing our staff or equipment. But that's not where the current function is leading."

"It can't drop back to zero," Ray protested. "Even if the gate hadn't ever been opened, Shandor's masterpiece alone would have created a permanent surge."

"No, the sheer population density in the Tri-State area is too high for the PKE levels to ever drop to zero, and the combination of the antenna and the cross-rip means that this city in particular will play host to paranormal manifestations for centuries, if not millennia. But the frequency of those occurrences will fall below the threshold necessary to keep us in business in approximately two years and three months, unless there's a second inter-dimensional incident."

"Well, couldn't we make one?" asked Peter. Egon, Janine, and Winston stared him down. "All right, all right," he conceded, putting his hands up, "that might not be a good idea."

"Which brings up the other problem," complained Spengler. "There is an unfortunate tendency for most people to pretend that the paranormal isn't real, even when they have evidence. As the ambient PKE flux drops, the majority of the manifestations will shift from Class Fours and Fives, which are difficult to ignore, to Class Twos and Threes."

"Those are the ones that you can't see most of the time, right?" asked Peter. Winston rolled his eyes. Ray nodded.

Egon continued, "Right now everyone accepts us because they still remember Gozer. In another six to eight months, I predict that approximately half of the population of New York will have accepted Peck's explanation or a variation on it - they'll believe it was a mass hallucination of some sort, accompanied by a series of gas explosions. And at that point, if the various legal actions against us aren't resolved, we're fundamentally screwed if any of this goes to a jury trial." He removed his glasses, squeezed the bridge of his nose, and replaced them.

"So what can we do?" Ray asked, the pleading note in his voice too obvious.

"We're going to have to make sure that, in the event that the partnership is bankrupted, the firehouse itself remains in one of our hands. We can't sell it off with the new containment unit operational, and we can't move the containment unit." Spengler scowled again. "We may have to resort to hiding the packs and traps; they would be extremely dangerous in the hands of untrained users."

"They certainly were when _we_ were the untrained users," smirked Venkman.

Ray sighed. "I volunteer. If worse comes to worst, I can sell off the house and pay off the mortgage on this old thing." It hurt less than he expected. Letting go of the part of his parents' memories that the house represented would be hard, but it had been a long time since he'd lived there. Letting this place go would be giving up on his future instead of his past.

Peter looked like he was about to say something, then he shrugged. There was a noise from downstairs, then Dana's voice floated up. "Peter? Are you up there?"

"Be right down," he called, and then leered and waggled his eyebrows. "See you guys later; don't wait up." He tossed on his jacket and slid down the firepole.

"Man, he's getting too fond of that thing," grumbled Winston.

"Miss Barrett or the pole?" deadpanned Janine. Then she turned back to Egon. "I'm going home for the day, sweetie. I gotta get some laundry done or I'll be coming to work in my sweats. Call me, okay?" She pecked him on the cheek as he mumbled something in her ear, then took the stairs down.

Winston collected his coffee mug from the table, rinsed it out, and set it in the drying rack. "I hate to break up the party, but if I don't get some sleep I'm gonna start shooting out windows by mistake again. Kick me out of bed if we get an emergency call, okay?"

"No problem. I'm probably going to turn in, in an hour or so, myself," answered Ray, stretching. He scooped up Venkman's dirty plate and a collection of mugs and glasses, set them in the sink, and started the water running. Winston trudged down to the second floor; the light from the bunkroom came on.

Egon tinkered with a pair of connectors while Ray rinsed the dishes, put them in the dishwasher they'd installed when they rebuilt the firehouse, and set it for a medium cycle. As Ray moved past, heading towards the shelves where he'd set up two different variations on the trap recharge port, Spengler's voice called out clearly but very quietly.

"How long have you been in love with Venkman?"

Ray stiffened; every tendon in his body went taut. He straightened up, whirled around, and knocked three empty trap cassettes onto the floor. For a second, he was all elbows again. As he bent to retrieve them, he protested, "I don't know what you - I mean, what makes you think - I'm not -"

"You look at him with the same expression with which Janine used to look at me. I didn't know what it meant until she explained it." Egon looked at the connectors as Ray replaced the cartridges on the shelf, then continued, "But I know what it means now, and I'm absolutely sure that it means the same thing for you. You've had that expression around him for a very long time. Were you already in love with him when he introduced us?"

Ray gave up. He wasn't a good liar, and Spengler never gave up an unexamined angle of approach to a problem. "Yes. God, Spengler, please don't tell him."

"I won't. You haven't told him?"

"No, I couldn't. I - I value our friendship way too much to risk it on something like that." Ray's heart was racing.

Egon inclined his head slightly, as if he were examining Ray like a specimen. "You think Venkman would reject you."

"Egon, he's straight! Of course he'd reject me, assuming he didn't try to punch me in the face. Besides, he's got Dana. Even if he did swing both ways, I'm outclassed."

Spengler blinked. "I've seen no evidence that Peter is inherently monogamous, and non-trivial evidence that he's not."

"But it's all with girls, Egon. He's not - I mean, I'm not - and I don't want to be his piece on the side, at any rate." Ray's stomach swirled and dipped. He wrapped his arms around himself and sat back down.

The physicist's dark eyes were intense as they found Ray's. "I don't blame you at all, Ray. For the record, I find both you and Venkman attractive, although not as attractive as Janine."

Ray's head swirled at that revelation. "You're bi, Egon? I didn't know that."

"I'm not sure I knew it myself until a few months ago. Thinking about sex as a personal issue rather than an abstract one is still rather new to me." Egon grinned, with only a hint of the twist to it. "At any rate, while my observations don't suggest that Venkman is in love with you, he doesn't react adversely to physical contact with you. I think when he breaks up with Dana you should ask him." He pulled himself to his feet. "I'm going to take a shower and then call Janine. Would you like me to unload the dishwasher, since you loaded it, and Peter won't be back before morning?"

"Sure." Ray's heard sank at the reminder that Peter would be spending the night in someone else's bed. He wasn't sure how he felt about Egon knowing his deepest secret, but he trusted him not to tell Venkman. Egon was reasonably good at keeping secrets, much better than Ray.

\---

All things being equal, which of course they never were, it hadn't been as bad as it could have been. In theory, Ghostbusters still existed as a corporation, although they were legally barred from doing anything at all related to actually busting ghosts. Ray owned the firehall outright, and hadn't lost the house yet, although a few thin months and he might have to sell it. Zeddemore had ended up with Ecto-1 and a lot of the equipment; since he had only been an employee, not a partner, he was less liable than they were. The three partners in the business had been fined to within an inch of their lives, but none of them had been personally bankrupted, and Ray had even scraped together enough credit to start the store. Spengler reaped the benefit of having continued to publish, even when they were out of academia, and landed a juicy position at the Institute for Advanced Theoretical Research. Venkman went into media, which seemed to suit him.

Of course, the stress took its toll on all of them, too. Peter's hairline had started to slip even before they formed the business, but losing it seemed to accelerate the process. Hints of grey were starting to show, and he wasn't even forty yet. Ray hadn't gotten fat, exactly, but once he stopped getting the exercise of running around with a fifty-pound proton accelerator on his back on a regular basis, he'd grown a bit stocky. At least he didn't gangle anymore. Quitting cigarettes probably hadn't helped, either, although he hadn't managed to give up tobacco completely; it seemed to add to the ambience of an occult bookstore for the owner to smoke a pipe, and it certainly smelled better on his clothes later. Even Egon had put on a bit of weight; his face was still long, but there was a touch of fleshiness to his cheeks that hadn't been there before.

They still saw each other fairly frequently, although almost never as a group. Usually, it was Ray and one of the others - him and Winston, him and Egon, him and Peter, once in a while him and Janine. Janine and Egon weren't dating anymore, although Ray suspected, from a few things Spengler had mentioned, that they were still sleeping together occasionally. Once in a while he managed to drag Zeddemore along to lunch or dinner with one of the others, usually Egon. Spengler and Venkman seemed to be holding each other at arm's length, which distressed Ray more than he cared to let on. They each seemed to hold the other responsible for the disastrous day in court when Peck had testified to the jury, and both of them had lost their temper at him. The bailiff had prevented any fisticuffs, but they both had some hard feelings.

Ray wondered how much his break-up with Dana the previous week had contributed to Venkman's foul mood that day, but he knew better than to ask.

Still, they all managed to be civil to each other, and Ray was still friends with all of them, even Louis, and that was the best one could really hope for under the circumstances, wasn't it?

So Ray wasn't as excited about it as Egon was when Dana came to them with another unexplained mystery. It wasn't, he assured himself, because of any hard feelings on his part towards someone he considered a rival, or because she'd broken the heart of someone (after that conversation with Egon, he had finally admitted to himself) he loved. And it certainly wasn't because she'd asked Spengler, and by extension himself, to keep a secret from Peter.

It was just bad luck that Venkman decided to badger Ray into buying him dinner when Egon was already there. The verbal sparring between the two of them was bizarre - was Egon _leering_ at Peter? Ray looked at the counter, played with his pipe, and tried to ignore the weird vibes coming off of Spengler. Distracting Peter with the book he'd ordered didn't help, especially after Egon handed Ray a passage from the Duke University telekinesis study.

"What are you guys working on?" Peter was casual, but he'd picked up Ray's nervousness long before. Ray mumbled his answer under Spengler's sharpest gaze, "We're just kind of checking something out for an old friend."

"Neat. Who?" Peter pinned Ray with his eyes like a butterfly under glass. Egon turned away, back to his book. Ray's mouth was starting to go dry when he was rescued by the phone.

Unfortunately, it was just a customer wanting to know his hours. As he finished and set the phone down, Peter's hand reached out, brushing his throat and catching Ray's chin gently in all four fingertips. It was almost a stroke, smooth, seductive. A tremor ran through Ray's whole body. Peter tipped his head up to meet those piercing blue eyes again. "Whooo?" he asked, sing-song.

Ray's mouth dropped open; it was all he could do in the thrall of those eyes, that touch, not to babble everything to Venkman, everything he was hiding, who it was and why they were doing it and everything he'd ever felt or dreamed about Peter. He struggled for control of his vocal cords and won, mostly, "Who?" His hands fidgeted as Peter nodded slowly, his eyes dragging Ray's with them. "Ah, just - someone we know."

Peter let out a small noise that wasn't quite a word, and drew his hand back, his fingertips sliding along Ray's chin and sending another jolt down his spine. "Ah," he said, nodding again. Ray smiled and looked back down at the book, desperate to break eye contact.

That was why he didn't see Venkman jumping to his feet in time to dodge. Peter grabbed both his ears and twisted; Ray yowled, protesting, "I can't, no, no - "

Peter's voice was still calm, almost musical. "Yes, you can. Who?"

Ray pushed himself to his feet to take the pressure off his ears, but Peter was taller than he was and kept his grip. Ray's reading glasses slipped to the end of his nose and threatened to fall off. "Nobody!" Where was Egon?

Peter redoubled his pressure. "Can you tell me now?" He was starting to get annoyed; his face was inches from Ray's. "Now?"

Ray relented. "Dana Barrett!" Peter let go instantaneously. Egon finally arrived from the back of the store, too late to stop Ray from blabbering; his eyes were reproachful.

Peter's face became serious again. "_My_ Dana Barrett?"

Ray felt like he'd been boxed on both ears and then gut-punched. _She's not yours, she married some other guy, why can't you just give up on her_, he wanted to yell. Instead, he whimpered and rubbed at his ears as Egon explained about the baby carriage.

His mind went back, relentlessly, to Peter's gentle touch along his throat and chin. He was glad he had an excuse for his ears to be burning red.

\---

Peter was in his office when Ray came downstairs. Janine, Louis, and Egon were all clustered around Louis's desk, discussing their plans for the evening; Zeddemore was taking the late shift, and Spengler had the night off. Louis was tense and wary, and Ray wasn't sure he wasn't right to be so, but their arrangement seemed to be stable for the moment, and Ray had no illusions that interfering would make things any better.

Venkman saw him, stretched ostentatiously, and pushed himself back from his desk. It was loaded with paperwork, but most of it was stuff that just needed filing. Peter draped an arm around Ray's shoulders, and muttered "Let's get out of here before Louis jitters his way through the floor, huh?"

"Where to?" Ray didn't really care, but it would be weird if he didn't ask.

"Let's hit Izzy's and bring back some sandwiches. We've had Chinese twice this week already." Peter let go of Ray and stepped out the door.

They chatted about the day's busts on the way; it had been a relatively slow day, just two Class Three vapors and a Class Two that barely had a physical manifestation, but was scaring the crap out of a widower and his two kids by breaking windows. One thing that his last round with Dana had taught Peter was that he was actually pretty good with kids; he'd spent most of the bust calming them down.

"Maybe I missed my calling. Child psychologists make a pretty good living," he mused. Ray grinned. "What, and give up ghostbusting?" Peter just laughed and pounded Ray on the back.

On the way back, Peter brought up the unstable triad in the office. "Janine's still totally hung up on Egon. Did you notice she put Louis in Spengler's uniform that one time, even though he's the tallest?"

"I thought she did that because he's also the skinniest, and it would bag less on him." Ray was enjoying the walk, for a change.

"Doesn't matter if the waist is baggy, when the legs are a third again too long." Peter snorted at the memory. "I think she's keeping Louis on because she feels sorry for him and she likes having a bed-warmer when Spengs is busy. I don't know why Egon's tolerating it, though. I mean, one word from him and she'd drop Louis like an anchor in Nassau Bay."

"Maybe Egon likes threesomes." Ray smirked; Peter honestly looked shocked at the thought. The engineer hadn't ever gotten around to asking Spengler whether he found the little guy attractive or not. He rather suspected Egon just didn't care whether Janine was sleeping with someone else, as long as she was sleeping with him.

By the time they got back, the trio had left. The note on the refrigerator said "Movie, dessert, Janine's. Don't wait up." It was in Egon's spidery handwriting. Peter looked at it, shrugged, and fetched two beers to go with their ham on wheat and pastrami on rye.

"So, speaking of child psychology, have you heard anything from Dana and Oscar recently?" One of the lingering effects of being thoroughly doused with positively-charged mood slime was that Ray had a hard time feeling bitter about anyone who had been in the room at the time. He was pretty sure there was still a spark of jealousy towards Dana down in his heart somewhere, but mostly he felt sorry that she and Peter kept hurting each other like they did. This time, at least, they were still friends; Dana even occasionally dropped by with Oscar, who was approaching two and very energetic.

"Oh, not in the past week. The orchestra has a new performance coming up; she's been rehearsing a lot." Peter slouched in his chair a bit, then looked at Ray and straightened back up. "Hey, Ray, can I ask you a question?"

"When have you ever hesitated to do so before, Venkman?" Ray cocked an eyebrow at him.

The psychologist leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Ray, are you in love with Dana?"

The bubble of panic that had risen in Ray's throat popped on the last word, leaving him slightly short of breath. "What? No."

Peter peered at him. "Are you positive? Because you sure ask about her a lot. You did when she and I were dating, and you've continued to after she and I decided we really just weren't going to be able to make it work. I think you have at least a little bit of a crush on her." He gave Ray a small grin, the one he used for private jokes.

"Nah. I mean, she's pretty and all, and I like her a lot; if she asked me out I wouldn't say no." And if he'd stopped there, everything would have been fine, but his tongue kept going without his brain's permission, because he was distracted by those ocean-deep blue eyes. "But I'm in love with someone else; I can't be in love with her."

He clapped a hand to his mouth, as if he could catch the words once they'd left. Peter dropped both of his hands to the table with a thump. "Oh, _really_, Ray? Who is it? Spill." The grin broadened into a shark-toothed smile.

Ray didn't move his hand. He shook his head and looked down, at his feet. If he looked Peter in the eyes again, he was dead. His life was over. They might as well bust him right there and throw him in the containment unit.

"C'mon, Ray," wheedled Peter. "It's not Janine, is it? She's already getting a double helping; you can't want to make it a triple, can you?"

Ray shook his head. Venkman reached over and pulled his hand away from his mouth; he didn't put up much resistance. "No, Peter, it's not Janine."

"Who, then? That cute blonde reporter from the _Post_ who hangs around?"

"No, Peter."

"The cop who lets us park on the street out here? Zeddemore's sister? That grad student of Egon's from the Institute who comes around to consult with him?"

"No, no, and no." Ray's shoes needed polishing, badly.

"Come on, Ray, there aren't that many girls around here." There was a long silence as Peter heard his own words. When he next spoke, it was much softer. "It's not a girl, is it."

"No, Peter," Ray whispered, afraid his voice was about to break, "it's not a girl."

There was a long pause. Peter dragged his chair over next to Ray's and put a hand on his shoulder. "Ray, how long have we known each other?"

"Oh, only twenty years." Ray hung his head; he couldn't possibly meet Peter's gaze now.

"And in all that time, you didn't think to mention that you were gay?" Was that genuine hurt in Peter's voice? Ray dared not look to find out.

"I'm not exclusively gay, Peter. I just haven't been in love with a woman in a long time." The last time he'd dated a woman had been back in Connecticut. The last time he'd seriously been in love with one had been in high school. Was that really love, or just young lust? It didn't matter at this remove.

"You thought I wouldn't accept you." It wasn't a question; Peter knew it was true. Ray closed his eyes and nodded, unsure of his voice.

"Ray." Peter was speaking so close to Ray's ear that he could feel his breath, warm and moist. "I know I was kind of a dick in college. Hell, I'm still kind of a dick about half the time. But I would never have dropped you as a friend because you prefer guys to girls. I certainly wouldn't now, now that I'm older and wiser." The f's and s's were making the skin on Ray's ears buzz; he was turning red again. Embarrassed warmth - and maybe something else, oh god - flushed his face and ears.

"I just - I just wasn't sure, Pete." Ray cringed, still. If he looked Venkman in the face, he was going to spill, and he couldn't handle that, not now.

"Well, you can be sure now, because I'm still here, aren't I?" Peter leaned back in the chair. "So, who is it? Don't make me twist your ears this time, Ray. You know I'll do it."

"Please don't." God, he sounded pathetic. Ray considered making a break for the firepole, but even if he got there without Venkman tackling him, he was going to have to come back eventually.

There was a note of suspicion in Peter's voice. "This has been going on for a while, hasn't it?" Ray nodded again, utterly out of control of his own responses.

"It's not Zeddemore, is it?" Ray shook his head once.

"Spengler?" Ray hesitated for just a second. He could lie and say yes, and Peter might not see through it immediately, because it would make sense. But that would be awkward in a dozen other ways, even if he explained the situation to Egon. Janine might stab him in his sleep. He shook his head again.

The pause stretched out for hours, days, years, aeons. Then the sword fell and ended his world. "Me?"

Ray did his best to curl up into a ball in the chair, his arms wrapped around his head, his feet tucked up on the rungs. In a mouse's squeak, he said "yes."

No, _this_ pause lasted for aeons. The universe expanded, collapsed, burst outward again. Finally a hand landed on the center of his back, gently. "How long?"

"I don't know exactly," whimpered Ray. "Since college."

This pause lasted exactly twenty heartbeats. "Twenty _years_, Ray?"

He couldn't breathe in this position; his throat was closing up on him. Ray uncoiled himself and tipped his head back over the top of the chair. "Maybe not quite that long, but close. God, I'm sorry, Peter. I never meant - "

"If you're about to say you never meant to lie to me," Peter said darkly, "I may have to kick your ass, Ray."

"I'm so sorry, Venkman."

"You just told me you loved me. No, that you've loved me for, if not the entire time we've known each other, at least the vast majority of it. Ray, don't you _dare_ call me 'Venkman' after that."

"Huh?" That didn't make any sense to Ray at all. He made his last mistake and opened his eyes.

Peter was standing over the chair, looking straight down at him. Ray opened his eyes and fell upwards into blue steel.

"I - " he started, and his mind went blank.

"Have you ever done this before? I'll be honest, the last time I did it was before I met Spengler." Peter's eyes were wide and dark. Why were they dark? His eyes were blue, Ray could see that they were blue, but his pupils were huge.

"Did what?" Ray asked, as Peter's mouth came down on his.

For a long moment, Ray was completely frozen, as Peter's lips brushed his, light and wet. He got his jaw to work, finally, and pressed up into Peter's mouth, his own lips sliding against Peter's, catching the ridge of his lower lip and tugging between his own. He worked up the courage to part his lips slightly and trace the tip of his tongue over Peter's mouth, tasting him, a warm, red, earthy flavor. Peter's tongue found his, circling it lightly before dipping into his mouth. Ray groaned, an utterly involuntary noise, and reached up to curl one hand loosely around the back of Peter's neck.

Peter drew back just enough to break the contact, and Ray's heart shrank. "Um, this is a really awkward position for my back," the older man offered. "I think the proton packs are starting to take their toll. Can we move somewhere more comfortable before continuing with this?"

"Uh, so, you're interested in continuing?" The words tumbled out of Ray's mouth, unbidden.

"When have I ever turned away from a course of action that stood a good chance of ending in my getting laid?" Peter's eyebrows drew together in thought, or possibly disapproval. "Ray, I wouldn't have started if I wasn't interested in finishing. I _do_ have a Ph.D. in psychology. I have a clue what might be involved in releasing twenty years, give or take, of pent-up emotion." He leaned in close again. "I think," he kissed Ray just above the eyebrows, "I know," he set the second kiss on his lips, "what I'm doing." The last one landed on the tip of Ray's chin.

"Um, bunkroom?" Ray offered. "Winston will be at the desk when he gets back, at least until one o'clock, and Egon said not to expect him back at all tonight . . . "

"An excellent suggestion," Peter smirked. He exaggeratedly ogled Ray's ass on the way down the stairs. Ray wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be flattering or amusing, so he laughed; the reaction didn't appear to displease Venkman.

"Now, what was that you said about not doing this since college?" Ray asked, as they piled through the door of the bunkroom. Peter landed on Ray's bed in a half-sitting position, and bounced several times before flopping back.

"It was the Sixties. I guess at that point it was the Seventies, but really, it was still the Sixties in all the ways that counted. I experimented a little, like everyone did." Peter had on his wolf-grin. "Nothing too serious. I wasn't into serious back then."

"You still aren't." Ray kicked off his shoes, crawled onto the bed, and snuggled up to Peter, curling an arm around him again. Peter's hands found the sides of his face, holding him for a moment, then stroking him lightly, his fingers tracing lightly down his cheeks to his chin. Ray's breath caught in his throat.

"Hey, I can be - no, you're probably right." Peter wriggled the rest of the way towards Ray and planted his lips on him. Ray slid his other hand into Peter's hair and drowned in the kiss. When he finally came up for air, they'd rolled over a quarter-turn and Peter was on top of him.

"Um, Pete, I don't know if that's such a good, oh, god, Peter, please, do that again," Ray babbled, suddenly aware that Peter could feel how hard he was through his khakis and then equally aware of how hard Peter was as he ground against him.

"With, umf, pleasure," responded Peter, pinning Ray's shoulders with his hands and thrusting against him again. Their mouths closed on each other, their hands went everywhere, and the next time Ray could both breathe and see, they'd rolled another half-turn and he was the one holding Peter down.

Peter's face was flushed, his irises a tracery of blue around solid black. Ray had never seen someone look so turned on in his life. "Oh, _Peter_," he moaned, burying his face in his friend's shoulder and bucking his hips against him.

"Oh, god, Ray, why the hell did you wait this long?" Peter's hands were on the small of his back, fingertips digging into the fabric of his shirt, pushing him down harder. Ray tucked his feet under Peter's ankles and thrust harder, feeling the zipper of Peter's jeans push back against him.

Ray moaned his friend's name like a mantra. "Peter, Peter, Peter." The warmth at the base of his spine was pulsing. "Peter, I think I'm - "

"Not before I get my hands on you, you're not." Peter rolled them over on their sides again, reached between them, and undid Ray's belt with one hand. He tried to undo the button the same way, but his fingers slipped; he reluctantly removed the other hand from Ray's back and opened his fly. "Geez, Ray, how long has it been for you, anyway?"

"Do ghosts count?"

Peter's eyes went wide. "_That_ long, Ray?"

"I'm kidding, Pete." He wasn't, exactly, but it was complicated, and he'd have time to explain that later.

Peter worked his hand into Ray's briefs and closed it around his erection. Ray shuddered and threw his head back. "Damn, it _has_ been a while, hasn't it?" Peter wriggled closer to Ray again, close enough to tuck his head into the crook of Ray's neck and nibble the soft skin there as he worked his hand back and forth. Ray thrust against him again and made a vaguely feline purring noise. Peter's mouth worked his way up Ray's neck, one hand stroking steadily and the other at Ray's waist, holding him.

Peter's thumb worked its way around and found the spot just below the head, and Ray quivered, clutching at his shoulders and trying to pull him even closer. Peter tongued the edge of Ray's ear, sucked on his earlobe, and then whispered, "You gonna come for me, Ray? You gonna come hard?" Ray's whole body jerked, and his voice dissolved into a wild keening as he shuddered and exploded in his friend's hand.

Somewhat to his surprise, he didn't pass out, and Peter continued stroking him through the last pulses. Ray reached down and began undoing the fly on Peter's jeans. "Ray, you don't have to, if -"

"Are you telling me not to, Peter?" Ray's hands paused. "Because I really want to. Remember, I've wanted to for two decades, give or take a year?"

"Oh, well, that's okay then." Peter's arm curled the rest of the way around Ray's waist as Ray edged both hands inside Peter's boxers and clasped his erection between them. Peter's eyes closed as Ray found his rhythm; he murmured "not quite so fast," and then "that's perfect," and then "oh, god, Ray, please," and then a flood of single syllables that didn't make any sense at all individually but added up to something wonderful to Ray. Ray pressed a kiss to Peter's open, panting mouth and whispered "Your turn," as Peter's eyes rolled back under their lids and warm wetness blossomed under Ray's hands.

"Mmmm," said Peter, eyes still closed. "Okay, so that was college we just made up for."

"Peter, I realize you think you're good," Ray answered sleepily, "and you're right, you are, but one good hand-job does not make up for three years, no matter when they were."

"Fair enough. We'll both have to try harder." Peter opened one eye and looked up at Ray. "When do we figure out which one of us pitches and which one catches?"

"We don't have to pick one or the other. I'd like to try it both ways before we make up our minds, if you're up for it." Ray wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say or not, but saying the right thing hadn't done him a damn bit of good so far, anyway.

"Sounds good. But not tonight. I'm beat." Peter tucked himself back into his boxers, but made no attempt to redo his jeans.

Ray got up and exchanged his soiled khakis for a pair of pajama bottoms. "Besides, there's all the oral sex to get through first." He hit the switch for the overhead light, although the bedside lamp between his and Egon's bunk was still on.

"Hey, you want oral fixation, I'm your man. Although, I'm not the one who's been smoking like a chimney since high school." Peter grinned. "I should have picked up on that."

"You still smoke when you're stressed. Um, Pete, are you staying here tonight? You do still have a bunk, you know, even if you haven't slept in it since you moved into that loft."

"I'd rather share yours. Cozier that way." Peter sounded drowsy. "Besides, I'd have to go looking for sheets for it, and then make it up, and by that time I'll be awake again."

"We're gonna freak out Zeddemore," Ray cajoled.

Peter opened both eyes and pouted a bit. "Twenty years of unrequited love, and you don't want to actually sleep with me?"

Ray relented and curled up behind Peter, drawing the blanket up over them both. "Okay, but you get to explain in the morning."

"It's a deal." Peter switched off the lamp, scooted back into Ray's spoon, and dropped off to sleep. Ray held him gently, afraid that if he let himself dream, he'd find that this was one, too, until his eyes finally closed.


End file.
